Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Busy Bee

Been busy with stuff, so haven't been blog-hopping or blogging much. Haven't had too much inspiration, either. Plus I'm now spreading myself even more by trying to write more regularly in my Finnish blog, so I need time to recuperate in between. 

Anyway, for those who want to see the article, here goes. It's a mobile phone photo. 


Other than being busy, I'm trying not to get sick. My boss is currently sick and I hope it won't spread to us, because we're already having pretty full schedule now that the winter holiday season has started amongst us. That said, I've been rewarding myself with some alcoholic-filled Easter chocolate at home ha ha ha ha ha ha...

These beauties are really good! 

 

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Tears Without Pain

I'm PMSing at the moment and I've been a crybaby (as usual, getting touched so easily/crying so easily if I see/watch/read a touching event/story). The other day I saw a touching scene on TV between a mother and her daughter and I instantly shed some tears without any twinge, any pain, any grief on my part.

There was an instant when I thought to myself, "Oh, how beautiful it is to be able to have that moment with your own child" but it was more like a moment when you see someone else's magnificent photos (your not being a photographer yourself nor do you attempt to be a photographer) and you're so touched by their beauty that you can't help blurting out, "WOW! To be able to witness all those moments/places and to be able to capture them in their glory must be something!"

I want to write this down for future use, as this is the first time I've felt something like this. That moment surely felt surreal.


That said, I felt something when I saw an article on myself in the newspaper (it covers Lapland). You see, a few weeks ago a reporter contacted me because he was writing an article on expats in Lapland and I agreed to be interviewed. I assumed he was covering other expats, too. Turned out the article was only about me (Doh! My introvert side cringed!). Anyway, during the interview I told him that we had no kids because the interview was also about what kind of services that expats needed or what challenges expats were facing. I mentioned our childless state to let him know that I couldn't give any input in terms of daycare/school and stuff like that. And no, he didn't ask why we were childless.

The article came out last week and when I read the part where "she and her husband have no kids", I felt something. I searched my heart to figure out what I was feeling...I believe it was fear/worry. Fear/worry of being judged by random people. It was hard not to wonder what the article readers thought about that sole fact. It was one thing to let selected people/my regular customers know that we have no kids, but I have no clue who else the readers of the article could be and how many of them had read the article. It was not only the scale of the article (as opposed to talking one-to-one), but also the fact that it was written in black-and-white for the public eye to see, I suppose.

However, funnily enough I was also somewhat glad that the article mentioned my age (the reporter was very polite, he even asked me for permission first if he could ask about my age or not with a very apologetic look on his face he he he...), because people here think I'm younger than my real age. Even though people here don't pry about children as much as Indo people, a few of them have blurted out, "Ah, you still have time" when I told them that we had no kids (without giving further explanation).